Monday, April 13, 2015

With Jackie Robinson Day and the Civil Rights Game being played at Dodger Stadium this coming Wednesday, I figured it was about time I take a moment to truly share my Jackie Robinson comic collection. Back in 2007 I made scans of only the front covers of the 6-comic collection (see that post here), but that post must have been rather unfulfilling. After all, what good is the cover if you can't take a peek inside.

Considering that, I decided to take some time to scan the actual inner pages, and the first half of the Jackie Robinson #1 comic is below. I'll have scans of the second half of this comic, as well as, pages from the five other Robinson comics available over the coming days.

This comic series was originally published in 1950 and was written by sports columnist Charles Dexter. You may know Dexter from his Robinson themed book titled Baseball Has Done It from 1964. BTW, Cathy Keen at the Smithsonian wrote a fantastic article about these comics that you can check out here. An excerpt is below:

The abuses he endured are addressed in a vague, sanitized way in the
comic book, which mostly covers his minor league career and his call-up
to the Dodgers. (This comic was part of a series.) Brief reference is
made to "the Jim Crow code." The words "race" and "racist" are never
used. Instead, the words "scheming foes," "sinister plotters," and
"Jackie's enemies" are used to describe the abusers, virtually implying
that there were only a handful of bad apples who made his life
unpleasant.

In other words, this comic is far from an explicit retelling of Jackie's life. Instead, it's sanitized for the youth of that time.

UPDATE: Directly below are links to the other Jackie Robinson vintage comics I've scanned and shared:

Featured above is the game-used Baseball Gwynn hit for an inside-the-park grand slam against us on June 26, 1997. That's right folks, the man who was a bit large during the twilight of his career (but rather fit in 1997) accomplished the rare feat in the seventh inning of an 4-4 deadlocked game at Dodger Stadium. Watch it below (the highlight begins at about the :20 mark). You can check out the auction item here.

Here is a look at all the Dodger "Primary Pieces" relic and autograph cards in 2015 Topps Museum; including the quad relic autograph book cards of Kershaw and Puig. Those two cards are awesome. The Kershaw book card sold this past weekend on a "Best Offer" basis at just under $600. The Puig card is currently on eBay with approx nine hours to go and is at $212.50. Check that auction out here. I suspect the Puig card value will rise measurably as the day goes on. Go here to check out all of my past post on this set.

One game hardly makes a trend, but suffice it to say that Alex Guerrero did a lot at the plate and on the field to bolster his chances at being part of the conversation. Not too long ago he was thought to be a bad signing, but if he continues to impress that opinion will quickly fade.

Due to a couple of injuries Guerrero had an opportunity to start for the Dodgers on Sunday and made the most of it. Guerrero went 3 for 5 with a two-run home run, a run scoring double and four RBI's total. If not for his work with the bat the Dodgers surely would have been swept by the Diamondbacks. Best yet, Guerrero made several good defensive plays at third base. Although he is far from a wizard at the hot corner, he just might be able to get the job done there.

Overall, you gotta like that he took the opportunity and ran with it. The photo above of Guerrero being interviewed by Alanna Rizzo was shared on the @Dodgers twitter. BTW, Joc Pederson and Yasiel Puig both hit their first home runs on the season as well, so hopefully this is a sign that those bats are ready to come alive.

"He said, 'Don, you'll never know how easy you and Jackie and Roy and
Doby made it for me to do my job by what you did on the baseball
field,'" Newcombe said. "After everything he'd been through, here he was
telling me how we'd helped him with the movement. I'll never forget
that."

EG: It’s hard to describe. I try to explain to my friends and my kids – my kids are older now and understand – and it’s hard to describe, crazy, emotional, everybody was so into it. The energy in there gets your adrenaline pumping and I think everybody fed off of each other. It was just amazing. I wasn’t there for Fernandomania and all that stuff but I heard it was just amazing. And I’d seen Hell’s Bells for Trevor Hoffman, it was really really cool, so I think I was really really lucky to be part of that.

"I met all the great players, but I never had the opportunity to meet
Jackie," Lopes said. "I didn't get to tell him what he meant to me
personally -- and to so many other people.

Jon Weisman at Dodger Insider sets things straight, "Defensive shifts are old news." I too can't believe there is any controversy in this. Folks seem desperate to find something to complain about.

Shifts in baseball in 2015, such as the Dodgers have been using, might
be more common, more extreme, more committed, more intense on the
risk-reward proposition, but they’re an outgrowth of the way baseball
has been played as long as I’ve known it — and longer than that I’m
sure.

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“There’s nothing like wearing a Dodger jersey. There’s nothing like it in sports. I don’t care that I’ve never been anywhere else. I don’t care. There’s nothing like wearing a Dodger jersey.” -- A.J. Ellis